I'd add having personas into your already good list. I believe they serve the same purpose as the story cards. Visible reminders of the short informal agreement of who the team is building for.

People all too often neglect the analysis part of research. If you have two team members talk to two customers, they will likely end up with two views of the customer. They could be right (different segments) or wrong (same segment, variation of same needs). Personas force you to resolve that.

I'm preparing a short presentation on the subject "Where are your users?".To make a long story short, I've come up with the following examples on how to lessen the gap between the developers and the users:

* User Testing within sprints and after sprints* A/B testing* Internship, developers following users in their daily works a few times a year* Developers work occasionally at customer service* Scrum sprint demo for users* Sprint planning with customer/users

Hans, Good info here, thanks. I think something you may add are the online and in-person Innovation Games from www.innovationgames.com These should always be

Message 2 of 5
, Mar 23 10:00 AM

0 Attachment

Re: Lessen the gap between developers and users?Hans,
Good info here, thanks. I think something you may add are the online and in-person Innovation Games from www.innovationgames.com These should always be a part of any team’s “getting closer to the customer” initiative and every Product Manager’s/Owner’s/Scrummaster’s toolkit. Luke Hohmann has a book by the same name (Innovation Games – Creating Breakthrough Products through Collaborative Play), and we also offer training.

Please check them out at:
Www.innovationgames.com

They have a brand new set of “click to Play” games that can be put into your own site and played on the spot with very little planning. Fantastic.
We know that determining value/cost is a collaborative game between product managers / product owners and developers. So, here is an example of how it can be into a collaborative game using our new "instant play" game technology (one click to play games!).

I’m an Innovation Games Qualified Instructor, so of course I am biased... But please ping me if you have any questions about these, whether done online, or in person! I will be offering an Innovation Games Training class this Summer in Austin, but they are also others all over Europe and the Americas. These really are awesome.

Hans,
Good info here, thanks. I think something you may add are the online and in-person Innovation Games from www.innovationgames.com These should always be a part of any team’s “getting closer to the customer” initiative and every Product Manager’s/Owner’s/Scrummaster’s toolkit. Luke Hohmann has a book by the same name (Innovation Games – Creating Breakthrough Products through Collaborative Play), and we also offer training.

They have a brand new set of “click to Play” games that can be put into your own site and played on the spot with very little planning. Fantastic.
We know that determining value/cost is a collaborative game between product managers / product owners and developers. So, here is an example of how it can be into a collaborative game using our new "instant play" game technology (one click to play games!).

I’m an Innovation Games Qualified Instructor, so of course I am biased... But please ping me if you have any questions about these, whether done online, or in person! I will be offering an Innovation Games Training class this Summer in Austin, but they are also others all over Europe and the Americas. These really are awesome.